Dylan Patel says that CXMT will have 7 billion dollars of equipment spending in 2024, with 3.8 billion of that going to American tool firms including $1.8 billion goes to AMAT.
He also expect CXMT HBM 3E for AI to ship in mid-2025
CXMT 3D DRAM Blatant Sanctions Violation
Memory is one the most important scaling vectors for achieving civilization redefining AI technologies, and China is investing heavily in leapfrogging the rest of the world with these technologies and has already started implementing LLMs for propaganda / electoral subversion as well as within the PLA.
Much like with how
as Gina Raimondo, was in China, CXMT also
by candidly announcing their violation U.S. export controls at IEDM in San Francisco. CXMT presented their Gate-All-Around Vertical Transistors manufactured at the 18nm half pitch.
CXMT vertical channel transistors at 18nm pitch, below export control limits
CXMT violated two different portions of the US export controls. US tools can not be shipped to firms that fabricate 18nm half pitch DRAM devices. US tools cannot be shipped to firms that fabricate gate all around transistors. CXMT has done both of these simultaneously in a functional device. With the way the law is written, American tool makers such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, and Onto can now no longer ship tools to the facility at which CXMT fabricated these devices. While the device above is production for research purposes with mass volume coming later, the regulations do not discount it. CXMT only has 1 fab site currently.
Our wafer fabrication equipment model and supply chain sources point to CXMT having 7 billion dollars of equipment spending for DRAM production next year, with 3.8 billion of that going to American tool firms and Applied Materials as the largest contributor at $1.8 billion of shipments to CXMT in 2024. This spend is higher than Micron for DRAM because of the recent $5B injection into CXMT’s government backed joint venture, Changxin Xinqiao, from federal and local governments.
While CXMT is still a few years behind on process technology for high volume production DRAM, they are
. We also expect their HBM 3E for AI to ship in mid-2025.
Enforcement of these rulings
, but with the way the regulations are currently written, CXMT has said that all US tool firms are in violation by continuing to ship to CXMT. This is why it is surprising that they admitted to doing so in public. To be clear, it is not shocking that they were able to exceed the limits. We even called out CXMT specifically in our piece on the
.
